菲茨杰拉德凭借十年来领导国际研究项目, 的工作成果，包括麻省理工学院和马斯达尔研究所合作项目以及麻省理工学院-新加坡研究与技术联盟,，他在其中探索了市场应用, 技术, 与实施相结合的创新。
Fitzgerald draws on a decade of work leading international research programs, including the MIT and Masdar Institute Cooperative Program and the MIT-Singapore Alliance for Research and Technology, where he explored innovation as the integration of market applications, technology, and implementation.
写于人工智能正在重塑我们对知识的看法, 研究, 和创新, “隐形引擎” 探讨一个更深层次的问题: 创新实际上是如何发生的, 以及社会应如何投资?
Written at a moment when artificial intelligence is reshaping how we think about knowledge, research, and innovation, “The Invisible Engine” examines a deeper question: How does innovation actually happen, and how should society invest in it?
在本次采访中, Fitzgerald 讨论了他自己的创新经历— 包括他在 1990 年代在 AT&T 贝尔实验室共同发明的应变硅,，这有助于将摩尔的 定律, 扩展到半导体行业的 大约每两年增加芯片上晶体管数量的长期趋势—探索对创新, 的常见误解，如何为创新, 创造条件，以及让机构为未来的不确定性做好准备的新方法。
In this interview, Fitzgerald discusses his own experiences with innovation — including his co-invention of strained silicon at AT&T Bell Laboratories in the 1990s, which helped extend Moore的 Law, the semiconductor industry的 long-standing trend of increasing the number of transistors on chips roughly every two years — while exploring common misconceptions about innovation, how to create the conditions for it, and novel ways to prepare institutions for future uncertainty.
Q: 是什么激发您写这本书?
Q: What inspired you to write this book?
A: 这本书实际上是从过去 10 年的研究到市场活动, 从麻省理工学院马斯达尔计划到麻省理工学院-新加坡联盟的工作中发展出来的。在科学,中，我们有专业期刊和类似的东西，捕捉各个领域,内的发现，但这些较大规模的项目—，科学,经济学,工业,和社会都交叉—不’t确实有一个学术线索将它们连接起来。
A: The book really grew out of the last 10 years of work in research-to-market activity, from the MIT Masdar program to the MIT-Singapore Alliance. In science, we have professional journals and things like that that capture discoveries within individual fields, but these larger-scale projects — where science, economics, industry, and society all intersect — don’t really have an academic thread that connects them.
我想写一本浓缩所有这些联系的书,，因为这种规模的创新过程实际上是许多不同领域的交叉点。占主导地位的是科学和经济学,，因为这些是推动创新发生的基本原则。
I wanted to write a book that condensed all of those connections, because the innovation process at that scale is really the intersection of many different fields. The dominant ones are science and economics, because those are the underlying principles that drive how innovation happens.
因此，我有兴趣在历史上纪念这一时刻，并记录我们’已经完成的规模—的实验，试图了解如何将创新过程的知识纳入大型合作研究项目中。
So I was interested in marking this moment in history and documenting the experiments we’ve done at scale — trying to understand how knowledge of the innovation process can be incorporated into large collaborative research programs.
最初是为了使这些计划发挥作用而做出的实际努力，后来变成了对创新过程本身更广泛且有些出乎意料的兴趣。
What started as a practical effort to make these programs work became a broader and somewhat unexpected interest in the innovation process itself.
Q: “ 隐形引擎是什么?”
Q: What is the “invisible engine?”
A: 隐形引擎是不同参与者, 的分散集体智慧，这些参与者是个人和公司，最终在市场上创造惊喜, 带来巨大利润。
A: The invisible engine is this decentralized collective intelligence of different actors, which are people and companies that eventually create surprise in the marketplace, which brings great profit.
“surprise” 的概念来自 Frank Knight,，一位 1900 年代初的经济学家，他试图了解发生在他周围的工业革命。于是他仔细观察了企业家并问, “企业家做什么?” 他的答案是企业家承担了不确定性。他们把一些东西带到世界上，但不知道到底会发生什么,，他们的回报是惊喜— 每个人都惊讶于人们想要它并且它可以完成。因为企业家是第一个发现机会, 他们可以赚取利润的人。
This concept of “surprise” comes from Frank Knight, an economist from the early 1900s who was trying to understand the Industrial Revolution happening around him. So he takes a close look at the entrepreneur and asks, “What does the entrepreneur do?” And his answer is that the entrepreneur takes on uncertainty. They bring something into the world without knowing exactly what will happen, and their reward is surprise — everyone is surprised that people want it and that it can be done. Because the entrepreneur is the first to discover that opportunity, they can earn a profit.
Q: 您开发半导体技术的经验如何塑造了书中的想法?
Q: How did your experience developing semiconductor technologies shape the ideas in the book?
A: 它始于贝尔实验室。我和我的同事有了一个重要的发现—，我们找到了一种以薄膜形式应变硅的方法，缺陷很少,，这是以前从未做过的。从物理学的角度来看,这是一个重大结果。但我一直对对世界产生影响感兴趣, 而不仅仅是科学认可, 所以我去找我的经理并询问, “我们下一步做什么?”
A: It started with Bell Labs. My colleague and I made an important discovery — we found a way of straining silicon in a thin-film form with very few defects, which had never been done before. From the physics point of view, it was a big result. But I was always interested in having impact in the world, not just scientific recognition, so I went to my manager and asked, “What do we do next?”
他说, “去和AT&T的营销人员谈谈。”事后看来,这完全有道理。贝尔实验室, 就像许多伟大的工业实验室, 创造了很多东西, 但他们不能 总是将其商业化。
He said, “Go talk to the marketing people at AT&T.” In hindsight, that made perfect sense. Bell Labs, like a lot of great industrial labs, created a lot of stuff, but they couldn’t always commercialize it.
然后我来到了MIT,，这是贝尔实验室之后的一个开放光圈。在这里，我可以保持所有元素的不确定性，并找到不同方向的趋同性。最终我创办了一家公司,，在各个机构之间穿梭来刺激事物是一次令人大开眼界的经历。我们最终与英特尔就专利纠纷达成和解，因为业界发现需要应变硅来扩展摩尔’定律—，这是我们从未预料到的。
Then I came to MIT, which was an open aperture after Bell Labs. Here I could keep uncertainty open across all the elements and find convergence in different directions. Eventually I started a company, and going between institutions to stimulate things was an eye-opening experience. We eventually reached a settlement with Intel over a patent dispute because the industry discovered that strained silicon was needed to extend Moore的 Law — something we never expected.
很多人希望事情有条理，并说,“Oh是的,看看所有这些混乱。”但没有—从贝尔实验室到麻省理工学院到初创公司,，然后到行业采用,的路径是创新过程。
A lot of people want things to be organized and say, “Oh yeah, look at all that chaos.” But no — the path from Bell Labs to MIT to a startup, and then to industry adoption, was the innovation process.
Q:什么’关于创新的最大误解?
Q: What的 the biggest misconception about innovation?
A: 人们认为，如果目标是经济影响，那么所有研究投资都会以同样的方式运作。但实际上存在三种不同类型的研究投资,，它们 用于不同的事情。
A: People think that all research investment works the same way if the goal is economic impact. But there are actually three different kinds of research investment, and they’re meant for different things.
有’我们都知道,，我称之为�%9利他科学。”利他科学—投资学术机构—的目的是培养受过教育的人。它’不是在想法最终必须成功的世界背景下完成的。如果你诚实地看看这些年来的直接经济收益,，它’基本上为零。
There的 the one we all know about, which I call “altruistic science.” The purpose of altruistic science — in investing in an academic institution — is to produce educated people. It的 not done in the context of the world that ideas eventually have to succeed in. And if you honestly look at the direct economic yield over all these years, it的 basically zero.
战略研究是第二个投资类别。与单一的技术或科学领域,相反，它’是围绕一个目标组织的。例如，新的 F-35, 可能需要在多个领域取得进步,，因此客户 — 在这种情况下，政府 — 希望他们走到一起。基本上,他们’将经济因素排除在外，因为他们’是唯一的客户,，但他们有更广泛的不确定性，因为他们必须处理多个技术领域。
Strategic research is the second investment category. As opposed to a single area of technology or science, it的 organized around a goal. A new F-35, for example, may need advancements in several fields, so the customer — in this case the government — wants them to come together. Basically, they’re taking economics out of the equation because they’re the only customer, but they have much broader uncertainty because they have multiple domains of technology that they have to deal with.
第三类是我所说的“基础创新。”它的意味着代表从研究到经济增长,的整个过程，即使它的在10-,、15-,或20年的时间范围内。根本性创新是不同的，因为它具有三个变量: 技术— 物理上可能的内容; 实施— 如何构建和交付; 和市场— 谁会采用它, 以及原因。根本性创新始终涉及所有必要的要素，以汇聚可能的价值。因此，您’一直在考虑市场应用,，您’正在考虑可以创造新创新选择的新科学和技术。然后你’在现实世界中工作，说, “OK,这里’今天实施将如何进行,，但也许这可能会改变,也许这可能会改变。”你不仅在做你的研究,，世界也在同时变化。
The third category is what I call “fundamental innovation.” It的 meant to represent the whole process from research to economic growth, even if it的 on 10-, 15-, or 20-year time horizons. Fundamental innovation is different because it has three variables: technology — what is physically possible; implementation — how it can be built and delivered; and market — who will adopt it, and why. Fundamental innovation involves all the necessary elements the whole time to converge on possible value. So you’re thinking about market applications the whole time, you’re thinking about new science and technology that could create new innovation options. Then you’re working in the real world saying, “OK, here的 how implementation would happen today, but maybe this could change, maybe that could change.” Not only are you doing your research, but the world is changing at the same time.
所以的确实是最大的误解—创新是关于一个想法。是’t。它’是一个与世界上的事物合作直到它们变得有价值的过程。
So that的 really the biggest misconception — that innovation is about an idea. It isn’t. It的 a process of working with things in the world until they become valuable.
Q: 这本书是你为谁写的?
Q: Who did you write the book for?
A: 我为多个受众: 个人创新者和学生; 研究人员和教师; 企业领导; 研究资助者; 和政策制定者编写了它。因此，, 的人们试图通过他们的职业生涯或投资来弄清楚,—无论是’政府还是私人—如何投资遥远的未来。
A: I wrote it for multiple audiences: individual innovators and students; researchers and faculty; corporate leaders; research funders; and policy-makers. So, people who have a stake in trying to figure out, either with their careers or with their investments — whether it的 government or private — how to invest in the far future.
Q:’你希望读者学到什么?
Q: What的 one lesson you hope readers take away?
A: 对于政策人员, 我会说: 了解创新如何在经济中发挥作用, 不要妨碍创新, 提出新方法来更有效地推动创新, 并认识到存在三种不同的投资流— 利他, 战略性, 以及这一基本创新流不是故意资助的。
A: For the policy people, I would say: Understand how innovation works in the economy, stop getting in its way, come up with new methods to drive it more efficiently, and realize there are three different streams of investment — altruistic, strategic, and this fundamental innovation stream that is not purposely being funded.
对于学生,，我认为理解这一点才能真正产生影响。我在书中指出的是，参与创新过程使你成为T型:你在一个领域拥有技术深度，在许多领域拥有广泛的工作知识。如果您’在这些条件,下进行研究，您就会开始了解世界和所有这些不同的维度。它本质上包括商业, 经济, 和应用程序。您’已经变得更广泛,，但您仍然拥有深入到任何领域的技术深度。
For students, I think understanding this is how you can actually have impact. What I point out in the book is that being involved in the innovation process makes you T-shaped: You have technical depth in one area and a broad working knowledge of many areas. If you’re doing research under these conditions, you start to learn about the world and all these different dimensions. It inherently includes business, economics, and applications. You’ve become broader, but then you still have the technical depth to drill down into any area.
对于大学,来说，这就是我们应该成为的人。我们应该教人们如何做到这一点以及如何参与我’m谈论的这些研究公司。我称它们为第三个地方: 地方，将每个人聚集在一起为此目的— 用于投资, 用于其他一切。大学是真正能够触发, 的地方，因为公司 没有足够的时间。政府和大学应该瞄准这些第三个地方进行创新,，学生和教师将能够通过这种互动变得更加T型。
For universities, this is who we should be. We should be teaching people how to do this and how to participate in these research corporations that I’m talking about. I call them third places: places that bring everybody together for this purpose — for investment, for everything else. Universities are the ones that can really trigger that, because companies aren’t going to have enough time. The government and universities should be targeting these third places for innovation, and students and faculty will be able to become more T-shaped through that interaction.